


On Thin Ice

by TheRedPoet



Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:09:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29515806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRedPoet/pseuds/TheRedPoet
Summary: Cornered by the wardens of the White Council, Harry Dresden turns to his only remaining means of escape for him and his apprentice - Mab. The price is steep and his first task seemingly insurmountable. Serve as Winter Knight and find the enemies within winter who scheme against her... and all of this without losing track of right and wrong in a place where the lines are blurring increasingly into grey.
Relationships: Harry Dresden/Mab (Dresden Files - Butcher), Harry Dresden/Maeve (Dresden Files - Butcher), Molly Carpenter/Harry Dresden
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	On Thin Ice

**Author's Note:**

> Heed the warnings, ya'll. The violence is going to be fairly graphic, characters you like are going to die, and the Fae are sometimes unrepentant monsters. I won't be doing anything detailed or graphic with the last, but it won't be ignored, either. All of that out of the way, I give to you the fic I've been working on for... ages. At time of writing this summary, it's about 250 pages long and I suspect it'll be pushing 350-400 pages before it's done. I'm currently on my first major edit and I'm posting the edited chapters here in search of feedback and because it's damn sad to see how few fics are being posted lately in the fandom. :D

“Do you trust me?”

Lightning flashed across the steely gray clouds looming over Lake Michigan and the growl of thunder followed swiftly. The air reeked of smoke and ozone. 

Molly and I sat crouched low behind the crumbling remains of a house, backs pressed to the rough brick wall. We were both trembling, bruised wrecks. My apprentice’s peroxide-blonde hair hung limply across her face, plastered there by rain and sweat. I hadn’t looked in a mirror for a few days, but I imagined I didn’t look much better.

We’d been on the run for days now and Molly’s face was pale and drawn with fatigue, but she nodded. “Always.”

I peered around the side, sticking my blasting rod out and sending a gout of flame sizzling through the rain, across the street, and towards the wardens sheltering somewhere out in the darkness.

It wouldn’t hit. That wasn’t the point. I just didn’t want anyone feeling too comfortable about moving out of cover and flanking us just yet.

I jerked my head back immediately, but not fast enough, and something hot and sharp stung my cheek as the wardens’ return fire shattered part of the wall. More blasts of kinetic force followed, sending more shrapnel flying everywhere. Swathes of fire took the breath out of my lungs and bolts of lightning rattled my teeth.

“Surrender, Dresden!” Morgan barked. “You’re trapped. Bring out the girl, lay down your staff and I promise you will be given a fair trial.”

Another flash of lightning lit up the alley. I’d always known it would come to this one day.

“If you wanted to ask me out this badly you could’ve just sent flowers!” I shouted around the corner.

Molly flashed me a quick, tentative smile. Good. We were most likely going to die in the coming minutes and if some smartassery on my part meant she wouldn’t be as scared, it was time well spent.

I saw another flash of lightning overhead, arching across the skies. One warden, a woman with salt and pepper hair and a gaunt face, frickin’ caught the lightning bolt in her cupped hand.

I ducked back just in time for a large chunk of the wall to be blasted inches past my face. When it came to hunting down supposed traitors and wholesale demolition, the wardens of the White Council did not fuck around. Unfortunately, my charm and wit were clearly wasted on Morgan and the rest of them.

“Don’t listen to her,” Morgan called, though it came out thin and weak over the ringing in my ears. “Don’t let her control you.”

Lasciel. That must’ve been why they’d come for us. He knew about Lasciel.

“So… Uh - What’s the plan?” Molly asked.

Morgan had been right. I was running out of options.

“I could veil us,” she said, trying to sound hopeful, though she knew as well as I did that there was no getting past the two dozen wardens surrounding us, no matter how good her veils were.

I shook my head. “Not this time.”

She looked at me, blue eyes widening in fear now and searching for something to cling on to. I had one more trick. One ace up my sleeve. I’d carried it around for years and I hadn’t been desperate enough to use it. Not until now.

“Do you still have that crystal I gave you?”

“Yeah… But I thought you said I shouldn’t use it.”

“I did. I was pretty sure it’d explode. Still am, but it’s still going to give us better odds than what we’ve got going for us at the moment. Grab it, would you?”

Molly dug through her backpack and came out with a large quartz crystal. “What odds are we talking here? 50/50?”

“More like 80/20.”

She gave me a blank look. “A twenty percent chance it’ll blow?”

I grimaced. “A twenty percent chance it won’t.”

“I guess this is why Han Solo never wanted to know the odds.”

I grinned. “If it cheers you up any, just think of how surly Morgan’s going to be when he won’t get the chance to kill us.”

“It doesn’t,” she said. “It doesn’t cheer me up one bit, Harry.”

All the same, she set the crystal down on the ground between us.

“One second,” I said. “I just need to make a call.”

I closed my eyes for a moment and when I spoke, my words were inflected with a touch of power. “Mab. Mab. Mab. I need to speak to you, if it’s not too much trouble, and I’m in a little bit of a hurry.”

The rain stopped and a moment later, snow began to fall. The night went silent. A cold, biting wind swept along the street, stirring up trash along its path, and from the shadows, a woman appeared.

“Now.”

Molly touched the crystal and the air was suddenly filled with a heavy hum of power. It stuttered for a moment and then sprang up around us in a spherical shield, blocking out the world outside.

“Damn,” I said. “It actually worked.”

“Indeed.” Mab’s voice rasped along my ear like a knife sheathed in velvet, and I shivered. 

“Though I expect it will not hold out against the Wardens for long. Speak, Harry Dresden. Why have you summoned me?”

I only hesitated for a moment. “I want to accept your offer to be the winter knight. Under a few conditions.”

The Queen of Air and Darkness finally appeared from out of the shadows and for a moment I forgot about my injuries, how weary I was, how scared I was. All of it faded away into the background as minor pointless details when compared to Mab’s loveliness. It was impossible to describe just how beautiful she was, to even begin to quantify it, except for in scattered details.

She was a tall woman – a couple of inches above six feet – and slender, though nothing about her suggested weakness. She wore a knee-length gown of glacial blue, the fabric fading into nearly translucent lace at the arms and cleavage. Upon a totally justified second glance, the lace turned out to be a delicate weave of ice.

“Conditions?” Mab asked, amused. “You are hardly in a position to make demands of any kind.”

“I still have a few. If you don’t like it you can-” I bit down on the rest of the sentence, took a deep breath, and continued. “If you let the council get me, you’ll lose your shot at having me as your knight or to cash in the rest of my debt.”

Mab considered that for a few moments. “Ask.”

“My apprentice comes with me to Winter. She stays at my side. You don’t get to command   
her or hurt her, by yourself or by proxy.”

Mab shrugged, an elegant and distractingly feminine motion. “A great deal of work lies ahead of you, should you become my knight. The girl may be able to assist you in your endeavors. However. Know that I will not protect her from the consequences of her associations or choices.”

“Fine,” I said. An explosion rocked the sphere around us and I saw cracks form in the crystal. “One more condition. I won’t hurt any of my friends.”

Mab considered that for a moment. Then she slowly strode up to me, green cat-slitted eyes luminous in the dark.

“Done.”

She grabbed me by my shirt and hauled me to my feet as if I weighed nothing, shoved me up against the wall, and kissed me viciously.

For a few seconds the world went blissfully blank. When I opened my eyes again I was… Somewhere else. Next to me, Molly was getting to her feet, looking around us.

“Uh. Boss. What’s going on?”

“We’re in Faerie,” I said. “I’ll explain later.”

She cast me a mildly surly look and seemed about to say something, but after a glance in Mab’s direction thought better of it.

I kept looking around, trying to figure out where we were. The area was shrouded in mist, but when I squinted I thought I could see stone slabs along the lines of Stonehenge all around us. Ah. Of course.

The valley of the stone table.

The mists slowly parted and revealed a rune-etched slab of stone. A man lay upon it, naked and tied down. He was emaciated and every single inch of his body had been scarred somehow: delicate cuts, carvings, burns. It was so bad that it took me a moment to recognize Lloyd Slate.

I stared at him for a long while. I knew what I had to do. I just didn’t know if I could.

Mab moved up beside me and produced a leaf-bladed knife from out of thin air with a flourish of her hand. She offered it to me.

“He will be your first kill. Spill his blood, his power, and I will pass it on to you.”

I swallowed. I was starting to feel sick.

I accepted the knife even though my fingers trembled so badly I could barely wrap them around its hilt. I stared at its wickedly sharp edge with sickened fascination. I took a step towards Lloyd Slate, then another, then another, moving in a dream-like stupor.

“The time is now, Harry Dresden. Release him from his torment.”

I could both hear and feel the eager quickening of Mab’s breathing against my neck.

My arm felt weak, powerless, and the knife impossibly heavy. I had to do it. It was the only path forward… And yet I couldn’t. Mab appeared before me, standing at the opposite end of the stone slab. Not a table so much as an altar, I realized.

“If you lack the conviction, Harry Dresden, then perhaps your apprentice would make a more suitable knight.” She looked past me. “Tell me, Margaret Katherine Amanda Carpenter. Would you kill for love?”

I looked over my shoulder at Molly, who stood staring at the scene. Our eyes met for a moment and I saw the determination in hers. She would do it. She’d kill Lloyd Slate so that I wouldn’t have to.

I had failed her, but I hadn’t yet failed her as badly as I might.

I drew a deep breath. I looked down at Slate, the unrepentant murder, rapist and traitor. Then I shoved the knife into his heart.

Lloyd’s back arched weakly and then he slumped back, limp. Mab shivered with pleasure as the man drew his last, ragged breath. She began to round the table and then simply disappeared into thin air, appearing behind me in a cool gust of wind. I flailed around to face her and found her raising her leg, setting it against the altar. The dress fell back and bared a generous portion of her pale thigh and I could see the play of muscle under her skin as she roughly kicked the corpse off the Stone Table behind me.

“And now, my knight…” Mab purred. “The time has come to claim what is mine.”

Gulp.

I think I may actually have said it out loud, because Mab’s smile turned into a wicked, hungry thing as she stepped in closer, backing me up until I stumbled backwards to sit on the Stone Table. She set a hand against my sternum and with an irresistible, patient strength she pushed me back to its surface.

I knew what came next. I’d never heard of it, but somehow, I just knew. Mab was going to give me the power I’d been promised, yes, but she was also going to show that I was hers now. Hers to command, hers to take pleasure in, hers to kill. Whatever her whim might be.

Mab drew a finger along her back and either there was an invisible zipper there, or maybe faerie magic, but either way, her shimmering gown slipped off her shoulders.

I stared at her. How couldn’t I? I barely noticed when she pulled down my pants.

Mab straddled my thighs, her weight and her soft, sinuous strength pressing me solidly down on the cold stone underneath. With that as a distraction I could almost, but not quite, suppress the sensation of hot blood still left on the stone beneath me.

“Mine,” she breathed, and claimed my lips in a kiss.

My aches, my worries, even the blood on my hands, it all washed away at the feeling of Mab’s lips on mine. It was conquest, pure and simple, and I found no reservations keeping me from meeting her, tasting her as the kiss deepened.

She watched me where I lay, panting and aching with need. Her deep green eyes descended my chest along with a single finger, drawing a slow slalom down the scars. I managed not to rut up against her, but couldn’t stop myself from groaning out loud when her soft, cool fingers closed around the hard, aching length of me, giving it a few slow strokes.

Mab shifted her hips a little, watching me and smirking the whole while, and then she guided me inside of her.

Holy shit. Ho-ley shit.

Yeah. I think that about sums it up.

“Mine,” Mab said again. The word was suffused by a low, throaty moan.

She kissed me and began to move. I had expected her pace to be quick and brutal, to the point, but Mab didn’t seem to want that at all. She moved slowly, indulgently, and I realized she was taking her time to enjoy this. She had, after all, been working toward it for a long, long time.

Well, I wasn’t about to just lay there and think of England. I settled my hand on her knee and began to trail it up. Mab didn’t stop me and soon I had my hands on her ass. Spenser made a serious dereliction of duty in not mentioning just how fantastic it was. Seriously, you could bounce quarters off it. If you ever wanted to see Mab replicate Sub Zero’s fatality move, that is. I settled for an enthusiastic squeeze, using the leverage to gain a measure of control over the tempo.

Things got a little bit blurry for a while and I only remembered a little scattering of details. For a few seconds I got a glimpse of Mab. Who she was. What she was. _Why_ she was. 

It was beautiful and terrifying all at once. 

Then Mab cried out atop me and I felt her entire body tighten, spine arching into a bow that threw back her long, white hair.

Whether by coincidence or simply by her will, I was only a few moments behind her.

I lay there, almost senseless in the aftermath, and as I slowly regained my faculties I felt Mab shift until she lay atop me, peering down and meeting my gaze with her deep, soulless eyes. She stroked my hair in a gesture that was disturbingly maternal, and smiled.

“Mine,” she whispered.

The first person to make a Freud-themed joke gets a fireball to the face.

As seconds ticked into minutes and I came to two realizations.

All of my injuries had healed.

And Molly was standing a few yards away, staring at me with a mix of fascination and horror.

***

Mab took us to her fortress of Arctis Tor through a portal or something like it. I’d known such a thing was possible, but to see her just cut a hole into the fabric of reality with a flick of her wrist, and bridge the gap… I’d never actually seen anyone do it.

We ended up outside a door somewhere in the vast tower. Mab still had an annoyingly smug and satisfied expression on her face. If I’d thought that it was purely down to my legendary sexual prowess, I might have felt good about myself, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t.

“A servant has prepared this residence for you and yours. She awaits inside. Until such time as you are needed, I suggest you make yourself comfortable in Arctis Tor. The servant will serve at your pleasure and convenience. Have you any questions?”

I was pretty sure what Mab was implying and it made my stomach roll around uncomfortably. I tried not to let that show, and shrugged, then eyed Molly. She avoided my gaze and kept her lips pressed firmly together.

“Looks like we’re good,” I said, before turning to Mab. Saying _safe_ was probably too much of a promise to make. “Uh - I guess we’ll see you later, then.”

Mab’s expression was blank, but there was something in her eyes that told me she was at least somewhat amused. “You will learn your place in due time. I shall enjoy ensuring that it is so.”

A little shiver worked its way down my spine at her words. Jury’s still out on whether it was from fear or excitement.

Mab didn’t create another portal, but simply walked away. I wasn’t about to complain. I got to watch her leave, hips swaying and drawing the eye to her rather lovely - Molly cleared her throat and I quickly looked away.

“Out of the frying pan and into the freezer, huh?” I said.

Molly’s lip twitched a little, but she didn’t say anything. I frowned.

“Are you okay?”

Her answer took a few seconds. “Fine. Tired.”

It had been a long day and we were both due about a week of sleep.

I opened the door and stepped into the foyer. It was pretty simple. Coat racks, closets. Much the same as my Chicago apartment, only bigger. Beyond that, the room opened up. There was a designated living room to the left, with a few comfy chairs and sofas. My old, original Star Wars poster hung off one of the walls, and at a quick glance, I was pretty sure someone had cleared my apartment of all the books and taken them here. They’d replaced the scuffed up old bookcases, though. The decor was warm, comfortable, and I immediately considered whether I should just lay down there for a while and maybe pass out.

A spacious countertop of dark marble separated the room from the kitchen, which was all sleek steel and stone. I idly noted a balcony straight on ahead, and a couple of rooms to one side, but most of my attention got stuck on the woman standing in the kitchen.

She was tall and beautiful in a way that was impossible to miss, even wearing no makeup, a hoodie and a loose pair of jeans. Her hair was a pale blonde colour and tied back into a ponytail. More wonderful than all of that, were the cups of coffee she held in her hands.

“Knight Dresden. Miss Carpenter. Welcome. My name’s Sarissa.”

I hesitated for a moment, not sure what to do or say, but the siren call of the caffeine could only be denied for so long. I walked into the apartment and Sarissa held the cups out. I took both and immediately sipped. Heavenly.

“You’re a saint. Thank you.”

Sarissa nodded, looking me in the face without letting our eyes meet. It was a trick most people who worked with wizards learned sooner rather than later, and it told me she was not one of the Fae. Faeries had no soul to trigger a soulgaze. A changeling, maybe?

“It’s nothing,” she said. “Can I help you with anything else?”

I looked over my shoulder at Molly, who had taken her shoes off and sat with her back to the wall just inside the door.

“Is there food?”

“In the fridge,” Sarissa said. “Though, if you want something specific I can get you-”

“It’s okay,” I said. “We’ll manage.”

Sarissa looked at me, then over my shoulder at Molly. “I’ll leave you two alone, then.”

She left and I locked the door behind her. I offered Molly a hand-up and the cup of coffee, in that order, and she only hesitated for a moment before accepting.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s take a look at the view.”

We settled on the balcony and for a few minutes the muted howling of the winds whipping past Arctis Tor were the only sound.

“Talk to me, Molly.”

She turned to me, blue eyes sunken, before returning to staring out into the night. When she spoke, it was so quiet I could barely hear her over the wind.

“You killed him.”

I swallowed down a fresh surge of nausea. “Yes.”

“Why?” I didn’t answer. She wouldn’t want the truth.

“Did - Did you do it for me?” She whispered.

God help me. “Yes.”

Tears were running down her cheeks. “You shouldn’t have.”

“It’s done. I’d do it again.”

“I didn’t deserve it,” she croaked. “I’ve screwed up so much and now you’re…”

She stared out into the dark, star-spangled sky that lit up the frigid valley below. I had a feeling she wanted to tell me something and was trying to gather up the courage to do it. We sat there in silence and I waited a while longer before she spoke again. 

“I didn’t think you’d be able to do… that. Kill, like that.”

“I didn’t, either.”

She raised her cup to her lips, hands trembling, and sipped the coffee. “Who was he?”

“Lloyd Slate. He tried to betray Mab a few years ago and help the Summer Court take over. Sided with the Summer Lady. The guy was scum. A murderer. Rapist. Maybe if I tell myself that enough times it’ll help.”

“Oh, Harry.” 

Molly took my hand in hers, squeezing my fingers gently. We lapsed back into silence. Even with the coffee, I hadn’t slept properly in days, and I could feel sleep tugging at me.

“What do we do now?” Molly asked. “What’s the plan?”

I had absolutely no idea if this was the kind of thing anyone ever had, or even could, get out of besides feet-first into a ditch six foot deep. I didn’t want to lie to her, but I couldn’t tell her I was as clueless as she was, either. I didn’t have to lie. I just didn’t have to tell her everything yet. When in Rome - or Faerie, I suppose.

“We get the lay of the land. Maybe we can do some good while we’re here.”

I saw the tiny flicker of hope on her face. “Okay.”

“We’ll be alright,” I said, as much to myself as to Molly. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Tomorrow, though,” Molly said. “I’m too tired to - anything.”

I yawned on cue. “Tomorrow.”

Molly took a tentative half-step toward me, hesitating. I wrapped an arm around her and hugged her and she melted tiredly against me, her body limp. She smelled of sweat, blood and smoke, and I wrinkled my nose. I had no illusions that I smelled any more pleasant.

“Maybe a quick shower before?”

She smiled just a little. “Maybe.”

It turned out we didn’t have a bathroom so much as a bathhouse. It looked like one of those ancient roman baths, complete with marble pillars, a huge pool in the center of the room.  
There was no exterior wall, just a single sheet of glass that opened out towards the night sky and gave a gorgeous view of the lands below. Or at least I supposed it might, when it wasn’t too dark to see. It had all the modern amenities, too, and we both quickly showered and shambled to bed. Sleep was damn near instantaneous.

***

At first I thought I was dreaming. I was in an unfamiliar place, somewhere dark and pleasantly cool, snug and warm under the covers of a bed so soft that it should’ve been illegal. It took me a few moments to remember that I was in my room at Arctis Tor… And though I couldn’t see anything in the pitch black room, I knew I wasn’t alone any longer. My first thought was that maybe Molly had come in, but no… It was something else. Something that made the hairs at the back of my neck stand up, that set my heart to pounding and woke me as surely as a bucket of cold water.

The scent of her perfume was the first clue. Something like mint and fresh snowfall. Sweet and intoxicating.

“Flickum Bickus.”

Lights flared rather more sharply than usually as I lit up every candle in the room, and I saw the woman sitting on the other side of the bed, watching me.

Mab.

“I hear if you want Sleeping Beauty to wake up, you’re supposed to give them a kiss,” I muttered.

Mab raised a single pale eyebrow. “Oh?”

I shook my head, trying to shake some of the last cobwebs of sleep away. “I honestly don’t know, Mab. What do you want?”

“Your full undivided attention will suffice for now.”

I lay back on the pillow, watching her. “You’ve got it. What’s up?”

Mab didn’t twitch an eyelash, but I had the feeling that I was pissing her off.

“On the morrow, your duties will commence. Your physical readiness will be ensured. As far as the court is concerned, this will be your primary task for the time being.”

I considered her. “And what am I actually supposed to do?”

Mab slid up further along my bedside, settling beside me. The beginnings of a pleased smile turned up one corner of her mouth.

“You are to ingratiate yourself with the inner workings of my court and investigate them. Each and every one. The lowest servant to the highest and mightiest among us.”

I frowned at her. Mab held absolute power in winter and unless they all banded together, like all of them, the other winter Fae weren’t likely to change that. Whatever was going on had to be pretty bad if she couldn’t or wouldn’t deal with it herself.

“What am I looking for?”

Mab leaned in close and the heady scent of her perfume damn near overwhelmed me. Soft strands of her hair brushed against my chest. It was difficult not to think back to our last meeting. She met my gaze and for a moment, I would’ve sworn there was something like concern there. Maybe I was just imagining things, but that was the closest I’d ever seen to uncertainty in her.

“Our world is at war,” Mab said. “And ever has been.”

“Well, duh. That’s just people.” Irritation flickered across her features for a moment. “I take it you’re not talking about that kind of war, though?”

She shook her head. “Your kind has waged war long before it had conceived of such things as countries, this is true. The war I speak of predates your kind, and mine.”

It was too damn early to do this kind of guesswork without any coffee. “Are we talking God versus Satan here?”

“The conflict between the Lightbringer and his father is old, but as most conflict, you are its cause.”

Realisation dawned slowly and I didn’t like it in the slightest. There was really only one enemy on the kind of scale Mab dealt with that predated humanity as far as the White Council understood it.

“The Outsiders?”

Again, Mab inclined her head in the slightest of nods.

“What does this have to do with inner court-”

I suddenly felt sick. I thought back to a few years ago, right here at Arctis Tor, and the insane ramblings of my Godmother, The Leanansidhe.

“The madness that took Lea… That was from - uh - Outside?”

Mab was as still as a statue, but there was no mistaking the intensity in her eyes.

“It’s spread?”

Mab nodded. “It was carried within the dagger given to my representative at the Red Court whore’s gathering. I believe you know the one.”

I did. A lot of people had died that night and in a lot of ways, they had been the lucky ones.

“Bianca got to Lea?”

“She was merely a pawn but the damage wrought by her idiocy was very nearly catastrophic.”

I glared at her. “The ‘I know stuff you don’t’ shtick is patented wizard bullshit, Mab. Don’t take that away from us.”

That very nearly made her smile. “Were I to tell you the full scope of the war you and I shall wage, it might very well shatter your sanity. You will learn when it is necessary for you to do so or when I deem you ready.”

“Uh. Okay.”

“Once you are made ready, the scales will be balanced on the account of those who wronged us. Together, you and I shall make such an example of them as to dissuade others for millenia to come.”

Her eyes darkened with lust and her breathing quickened as she spoke. I could feel the cool sweetness of it brush my lips and had to fight down a shiver. Was it possible to be both terrified and aroused at the same time? There was probably some newfangled word for it. Molly probably knew, but there was no way in hell I’d ever ask her.

Mab rose. The candlelight dimmed until she faded into the shadows once more. “Rest, my knight, or I fear you will not survive what morning brings.”


End file.
